


what happened under the waves

by ifinkufreaky



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Drowning, F/M, Kissing, Old Norse, Pagan Gods, Ran and her daughters, So much kissing, as mermaids, contemplating death, erotic death myths are fun, gods in love with mortals is my jam, loosely based on Norse mythology, tw: not breathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:31:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/ifinkufreaky
Summary: A fairy-tale version of how Ivar might have survived the shipwreck in 4x13, despite Aslaug seeing his death in a vision. Based loosely upon descriptions in the sagas of the daughters of the sea goddess Rán, and their role in welcoming drowned souls into the realm of the dead.Trigger warnings for descriptions of drowning, not breathing, contemplating death and mortality.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Reference for Rán and her daughters in section 5 of this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Norse_paganism

There were many souls to collect on this day; proud Viking men and women, their vengeful intentions interrupted by the storm that smashed their little vessels to pieces. Their bodies wafted down in the shifting currents, peaceful now, to the arms that waited below.

Uðr came to a boy, fair face just on the verge of manhood. He was tied to the mast of one of the sinking ships. There was a determined set to his jaw even now, on the edge of death. Most souls had surrendered by the time she reached them. One of her sisters approached, and Uðr shooed her away. This one… she wanted to look at him a little longer.

She traced his handsome brow with one finger. A fine catch that she did not feel like sharing. The boy’s eyes flew open, piercing blue like the sky had been the one time she had lifted her head above the waves. She pressed her lips to his quickly and pushed that spark of life back down.

*****

Ivar woke to the sound of silvery voices speaking softly above him. “What are you doing with this one, sister?” The first voice asked.

“There is something special about him, can you not see?” the second voice, slightly higher and perhaps younger, answered. “I am not taking him to Mother yet.”

Ivar decided to stay still. Wherever he was, it sounded like he might be in danger, but perhaps he could learn more if they continued to talk over him. He was having trouble remembering how he may have gotten here.

“You know Mother is not covetous,” the first voice responded, “If you tell her you want to keep this one to yourself, she will listen.”

Did the second voice giggle? “It’s not that … well perhaps maybe it is.”

“I will gather the rest; join us soon, sister,” the first voice replied.

Ivar remained motionless, struggling to make his thoughts connect to each other. Had he already left Kattegat? Father was taking him to England, was that right?

“I know that you are awake,” the voice of his captor said.

Ivar opened his eyes slowly. They were in a small room, lit dimly with a strange, indirect, blueish hue. He sat in a chair, and his companion sat in another, facing him. She was very odd, and Ivar immediately felt his mind begin to clear. It was quite clear that he was in the presence of someone from one of the other realms. Her skin was as pale as a bloodless corpse, but shimmering. Her eyes were too big for her head as she stared at him, curious yet patient. Ivar tried desperately to recall something like her from the stories he had grown up hearing at Floki’s knee. The creature’s long, greenish hair was entirely unbraided, and moved strangely around her head. Like it was floating.

All at once Ivar became aware of the coldness pressing against his own body, the distortions in the light as he looked around. Water. They were underwater. He clutched at his throat and looked at the curious creature imploringly; there was no breath at all in his chest. She cocked her head to the side, but said nothing.

Ivar realized that though he was not breathing, his body was still and restful. Comfortable, even. Evidently he did not need to breathe, in this place. “I am dreaming?” he asked the strange girl. She shook her head no, continued to watch him. “Where are we?”

“In my mother’s hall. Why were you tied to the mast, were you the captive of these Vikings?” she asked, directly on the heels of her answer.

The shipwreck. Cold swept through Ivar’s body as he remembered his terror, the sting of water whipping his face as his father lashed him down and commanded him to stop screaming. Ivar stared at his hands, the way their image distorted subtly in the water surrounding them. Did that mean he was he dead now?

“I was not a captive,” Ivar answered her, “I am Ivar, son of the great Ragnar Lothbrok. My father bound me to the sail so that I would not be swept off the deck, in the storm. Who are you?”

“Uðr,” the creature said, then leaned closer. “Why are your legs bound together like that, if you are not a prisoner?”

Ivar looked down. “Because they are useless,” he explained flatly. “I cannot walk. And I find it easier to move when they are locked together this way.”

“Oh,” the creature said lightly, looking down. “You don’t really need legs here.” She pushed herself out of her chair, in a weird movement that launched her as if she were flying. Of course, they were underwater; she was swimming. As she rose, her legs stayed close together like Ivar’s. Then they bent unnaturally and Ivar realized she did not have legs, she had the body of a fish below her navel. Her swirling hair hid the rest of her form. What Ivar had taken for a pale green dress was a sheet of iridescent scales, stretching out longer than a girl’s legs should be and terminating in a large forked fin. She beat it against the water in one quick, graceful motion, drawing herself nearer to Ivar. “Come, you must be hungry,” she said, compassionate face looming large over his own. He remembered then that he had woken once during the shipwreck, and that she had kissed him, in the drowning blackness under the sea.

He parted his lips at the thought; her huge eyes flitted down, noticing the movement. She hesitated, then slid one cool hand down his cheek. “You are… so beautiful,” Ivar marveled up at her. Her elfin face brightened in a humble sort of delight. “Will you kiss me again?” he asked. There were more important matters to consider right now, but he was finding it hard to focus on them.

The beautiful creature took both of Ivar’s hands in hers and drew him out of his chair. It seemed easy for her; he supposed he didn’t weigh much here under the waves. She tried to pull him toward the door, but Ivar resisted, pulling against her hands to twist her toward him again. A voice in the back of his mind was telling him to delay finding out what was beyond that door. “Please, I must have one more taste of you,” he implored, laying on his most charming smile. They drifted just above the floor together, hands clasped in the center of the room. It felt wonderful to be so weightless, face to face with a girl in a position that would be impossible for him on land. Even the nagging ache in his bones that he lived with every day was gone.

She grinned suddenly, showing him a mouthful of teeth like pearls. “If that is what you want, Ivar son of Ragnar,” she said, bringing her face so close to his that her floating hair tickled his skin.

Ivar released her hands so he could smooth that hair out of his way, clasping her face at both sides. “I can think of nothing else I want more,” he intoned, though he didn’t entirely mean that; then laid his lips across hers. Just a moment to enjoy himself, then he would get back to discovering where he was and how to get back to his life.

The strange girl responded hungrily, throwing her arms around his neck and matching his pressure with her open mouth. He felt the waters swirl as she kicked with her fin to move her body closer to his. Her tail started to wind itself around his legs as she grazed her teeth across his bottom lip.

Something about her drowning embrace finally dislodged the right legend from Ivar’s mind. The girl had said they were in her mother’s house. Ivar pulled the creature’s face away so he could look her in the eyes. “Uðr, who is your mother?” Ivar asked, though he was pretty sure that he already knew.

“My mother is Rán, who rules the seas,” Uðr replied, a shadow of remorse passing across her eyes.

Every man feared ending up in Rán’s embrace. Why had it been so difficult for Ivar to remember the tales of drowned men feasted at Rán’s murky hall? They said she took you to her bed before you died, but it was not a fate he had ever heard of anyone escaping.

“So I am dead,” he said levelly, hands trailing down her neck to rest on her shoulders. He looked over her head and considered the taste of those words.

“Not entirely, yet,” she said apologetically. “Come, we must go to the great hall.”

Ivar let her pull him out of the door then. Ivar the Boneless, he thought, drowned on his way to England. His mother’s vision had been right. Dead before his first chance to raid, to attain any glory. Before he could earn his father’s love. The sagas would not speak of him; aside perhaps from a pitying mention of Ragnar Lothbrok’s poor crippled son.

Ivar found it easy to pull himself through the watery passages of Rán’s home; he skimmed along the floor needing only occasional handholds. Uðr matched his pace, swimming with her body parallel to his in what almost felt like a comfortable companionship. Ivar wondered bitterly if this were a better realm for him anyway; he seemed to move much more similarly to the creatures here than those of his home.

When they reached the great hall, Ivar paused at the threshold while his companion sailed right in. He needed a moment to take in the impressive sight before him. The ceiling was so high it was barely visible, the space below it dotted with unidentifiable lights of many colors. There were enough benches to seat an entire army all at once. He saw not one but nine great hearths, each set with an enormous cauldron over flickering flames of orange and green.

The central table was laid out for a feast; platters of fish of all kinds, prepared seaweeds, fruits and vegetables the likes of which Ivar had never seen. His companion pulled herself up to the nearest bench and waved her fingers; two cups floated toward her and a jug of mead poured itself for them. Ivar raised an eyebrow at the liquid seemingly pouring underwater, and at the yellow flames burning in braziers that emitted no palpable heat. He wondered how much of this was illusion. At a few more lazy passes of Uðr’s hands, two plates filled themselves with generous helpings of the dishes laid out before them.

“Where is everyone?” Ivar asked. This feast was not just for him.

 “My mother and my sisters are already taking your sailors to Helheim.”

“All of them?” He accepted his cup from her, but did not lift it to his lips.

She shrugged. “Most of them.”

“My father?”

“Your father’s fame has reached us even here.” Uðr looked him solemnly in the eyes. “I did not see him among the dead.”

There was hope yet, then. A reason to try and escape his fate. “You held me back.” Ivar kept his eyes locked on Uðr so that she could not brush him off.

“I did not want to take you to Helheim yet, no.” She thrust one of the plates toward him. “You must eat something,” she urged him.

Her insistence seemed suspicious to Ivar; Floki had taught him well about the kind of tricks that gods and giants sometimes played. “If I eat, will that keep me here?” he asked directly.

“Do you want to stay?” the creature asked back, matching his intensity with an arching, glimmering eyebrow. “Most men find it… cold, among us, after a while.”

“I find it peaceful,” Ivar sighed, closing his eyes for a moment. Nothing hurt. The waves gently rocked him like distant memories of his mother’s arms.

“And is peace the thing your heart most yearns for, son of Ragnar?”

Ivar thought about what it would be like to let it all go, accepting that the end of his life would be here in the deep. An end to pain, an end to the constant gnawing, hungry anger, straining for respect, for glory, for _love_ , true respectful love. To accept that pity would be all he had ever gotten in life, and slide from an unmarked grave down to the gloom and tedium of Helheim. Never again to care so much about anything. Never to have become a man, and to be remembered fondly only by his mother, crying over her lost boy.

It wasn’t good enough. Even in the hypnotic embrace of this place, he could not truly rest. His heart still yearned to prove himself a true heir to his father, and to his mother’s legendary father. A conquering hero elevated over all of his brothers and anyone who had ever laughed at him. He yearned for glory. He yearned for life. Pain and all.

Ivar opened his eyes, cocked his head to the side and looked at Uðr with a crooked grin like his father's. It felt as if the goddess could see all of these thoughts shining out of his face, as her features stirred in something that looked like pride. She kissed him again, webbed fingers trailing over his face, cupping his jaw. She kissed him like a woman in love, like he always dreamt of being kissed. “This is why I held you back,” she whispered into his ear. “I want to keep you, but you are not for me. I cannot let you go into Helheim. I think your destiny lies in Valhalla, Ivar Ragnarsson.”

To hear someone like her say it cut him to the very core of his being. “How do you know?” he asked, his voice sounding small and overcome.

“You taste like greatness,” she said, licking across his mouth again. “It is intoxicating. Let me dine on your lips a while longer, and then I will take you back to your father.”

*****

Uðr laid the fair boy on the verge of manhood carefully onto the beach, an arm’s length from his slumbering father. It was only her second time above the surface of her mother’s domain. She did not care for the harshness of the air, nor for the scrape of sand grinding against her belly as she dragged both their bodies onto the dry land. She wondered if Ivar would not be happier if he stayed with her under the waves.

But she had spoken the truth; she would not have been able to keep him for long. The light would have slowly faded from his eyes, and he would have found himself turning toward Helheim on his own if she did not tire of him first. Better to give him a second chance at the glory that seemed written into his skin. Uðr pressed one last kiss into his lifeless lips and tied his soul back firmly into his body.

Then she slid herself gratefully back into the water, and promised herself to watch over him every time he went sailing over her domain. Perhaps if she came nearer the surface then, this would not be the last time she ever laid eyes on that fair face.


End file.
